Ghosts from my childhood

So tonight we're getting the boys ready for bed when the phone rings. Hunnybunny goes to answer it. There is a man on the phone asking for me and I hear him start to bristle. "Can I have a name?", I hear. He comes in and says that my cousin Shane is on the phone. What the heck? I haven't seen him in about 9 years and before that about another 10 years. I'm wondering if someone is dead. He just felt like saying hello. Weird!

Let me explain. Shane was my best friend growing up. You know how they talk about kissing cousins? That was us. If it wasn't illegal (and gross) to marry your first cousin then we probably would have married when we grew up. What the heck did I know? I was a little kid.

But anyway.... Shane was my closest friend and confidant until my mother stole us and moved us to Pennsylvania. I used to have a HUGE family. Growing up, I lived 5 houses from my grandparent's house and all of my cousins spent the entire summer there. All 10 of my cousins felt like brothers and sisters. Shane, Erin and I were about the same age( within months of each other). We three were inseparable.

The summer before I entered 6th grade my mom bought a house in Havertown. She decided that she was finally ready to take care of us and arranged to take us for the summer. Let me tell you, that was the most boring summer of my life! No pool, no beach. Blech! She decided (without consulting my Dad) that she was going to enroll us in school in PA. She had me break the news to my Dad that we weren't ever coming home. She tricked me into it. My Dad cried so hard. That was one of the most painful days of my life. To this day he blames me for choosing her over him. He just doesn't get that a 10 year old child cannot make that kind of decision.

I always hated my mom. She was never a part of my life. My mother worked graveyard shift at Denny's as a waitress and trainer. She slept all day and was gone all night. Then when Yimmit was about 1 she started travelling opening up new restaurants. What kind of mom leaves her 1 year old and 4 year old for weeks at a time? And I'm not getting down on working moms. I know some people have to do it. Mine CHOSE it. She's told me so. Then she left my Dad and left us with him. Again she says that she had to get out. She was so afraid of him. But if he was so dangerous then why did she leave her kids with him for another 6 years? You know why? Cause she didn't feel like dealing with us. She was too busy playing with her new boyfriend. My step father has known us since Yimmit was 2 but I still get comments like, "Oh, he's never been around children." What the F*** were we? Rabid dogs?

So she ripped us away from the state we were born and raised in just to hurt my Dad. Well, me not Yimmit. I don't think he even remembers Delaware. But in the process she took away my entire family. And did she move us to a place where there would be kids to play with? NO! She moved us to a major road so that my stepfather's business could be in their house.

Back then there was no Blue Route. It took an hour to an hour and a half to get from Havertown to New Castle. There were months that would go by without me even seeing my Dad. I never saw any of my cousins again. A year later my Grandfather died. A year after that my Grandmother died. The next year my dad and stepmother divorced, my brother died, and my dad lost the family business and his house. The next year my Dad went to prison.

I'm going to have nightmares tonight.